While the development of television and video has enabled learning by audio-visual means, the basic method of learning and acquiring knowledge continues to be reading. Reading is a fundamental course in every school in every country and reading at home supports and complements reading at school.
There is a clear correlation to reading ability, literacy, and crime. About 60 percent of prison inmates are illiterate. There is also a clear correlation between literacy, education and poverty. Over 80 percent of prison inmates are school dropouts and about 60 percent of prison inmates were raised in poverty. The ability to read underlies core values and problems of our society. The desire to read underlies reading ability achievement. Yet despite the importance of reading, many people fail to develop sufficient reading ability to function in society. Reading is an acquired skill, that improves with practice. Although national averages indicate that most students know how to read, studies show that most don't enjoy reading enough to do it very often. It is a common known fact that human behavior is directly correlated with pleasure and displeasure. Therefore, those that do not enjoy reading are less likely to read often. Conversely, those that do associate reading with pleasure tend to read often. Further, there are many people that when they read, have shorter attention spans and become bored or tired easily after only a short duration and thus they tend to quit a story of any significant length in midstream. By not reading an entire story, these readers miss out on the full enjoyment and stimulation that reading provides and as a result, may not associate pleasure with reading but instead associate boredom, frustration or failure. Most stories that are found to be the most stimulating and enjoyable are usually stories of a significant or substantial length. These lower attention span readers reading alone, or even taking turns with another reader page by page or section by section, have to read either a substantial portion or all of the story themselves while providing their own visualization of the plot and all the characters. Again, these readers become bored or tired and as a result, many turn to television for presenting them with an interesting story that takes less effort. It is not time that these readers lack as most television programs are of significant length. It is the amount of effort, desire and pleasure association with reading that they lack. Thus, there is a need for (1) improving reading skills, (2) improved ways to encourage people to want to read more and (3) improved ways to lessen the boredom that can be associated with reading materials that are of significant or substantial length.
One important way to improve reading skills is to read aloud. Reading aloud not only develops and enhances reading ability, it develops verbal language skills and public presentation skills. A 1985 Commission organized by the National Academy of Education and the National Institute of Education, and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education found that “the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.” The Commission provides evidence that supports the use of reading aloud in school and at home and recommends that reading aloud to children is a practice that should continue throughout the grades. Research has shown that listening comprehension comes before reading comprehension. Children can hear and comprehend reading material that is more complicated than what they can actually read. Listening to reading enhances comprehension and vocabulary. Research has shown that a child's reading level does not catch up to his or her listening level until approximately the eighth grade. Thus, there is a need for improved ways to encourage people to read aloud together.
The current practice of reading aloud usually involves a parent reading aloud to a child or a child reading aloud to a parent while they share one copy of book or reading material. Unfortunately, most books are written at a single reading level. Therefore, when the child reads aloud to the parent, it is necessary to select a book that has been written at a readability level suitable for the child. When the parent reads aloud to the child, the book selected can be at a higher readability level and thus more interesting and challenging to listen to, however, the child can not usually read many portions of this book aloud. Thus, a parent and child cannot readily read a book aloud together. Further, should more than one parent or child wish to be involved in the reading experience, there is further difficulty leaving usually only one reader and the remaining as listeners. When books are read in groups, those readers with advanced reading skills become bored, while those with lower reading skills have difficulty reading text that is above their actual reading ability which can cause embarrassment. They can also loose track of where they are reading causing further embarrassment and frustration. This type of group reading can discourage lower level readers from improving and wanting to read in general. Thus, there is a need for an improved way to read in groups and to encourage participation by all readers that is comfortable, challenging and stimulating to all the readers in a group in order to improve reading skills and provide an enjoyable reading experience.
Panec, U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,693, proposes an apparatus for shared reading that attempts to solve this problem for a skilled reader and a novice reader by providing a book with a story developed through two alternating and interwoven texts, one written at a higher skill level for a skilled reader, the other written at a lower skill level for a child or novice reader to read. However, the Panec method with two different level readers, as well as typical shared reading methods among two readers with comparable reading levels, involves the readers simply alternating by page or section in reading aloud while sharing the same book. Although the Panec method attempts to solve the problem of disparity in reading levels for one novice reader and one skilled or adult reader, it does not encourage or provide an organized method or means to get more than two readers within a typical family or group involved in reading together. It also only provides a “predetermined” readability level and not a “selectable” reading level.
When there is more than one child in a given household, the parent or parents must find time to read, usually a different book, to or with each additional child as there exists a lack of books that can hold the attentions or interest of, or be read without difficulty by children of varying ages. Reading a book prepared with the Panec method with topic, content and readability levels suitable for a novice reader and a skilled reader would have to be read with the first child and a second book with topic, content and readability levels suitable for the second child and a skilled reader would have to be read and so on. Thus, a problem still exists for parents and teachers in providing the benefits of reading aloud in a group. There is clearly a need to present reading material that accommodates a span of novice to intermediate to skilled level readers within the same story or reading material along with a method for organizing the reading material for encouraging and enhancing the enjoyment of reading aloud in a group.
One way to encourage people to read more is to make it more pleasurable and fun, and one way to reduce the boredom associated with reading text of substantial length is to split up the story among a group of readers. This is typically done by altering the reading of text by section, page or chapter.
It is thus an objective of this invention to improve reading skills by facilitating the practice of reading aloud, and the benefits derived therefrom, by providing an organized group reading format that encourages people to read more by enhancing the pleasure and enjoyment of reading by providing a group “role-play” reading format, and that increases the likelihood of a reader staying involved in an entire story by using the aforementioned group “role-play” reading format. It is a further object of this invention to facilitate and enhance the aforementioned method of “role-play” group reading by providing a multiple of reading materials that are organized, structured, customized, formatted and displayed in a manner that makes it easier for each reader to identify and follow the parts they are to read. It is a further object of this invention to provide improved reading materials that make it easier and also more enjoyable for all readers to develop and improve reading skills by providing text suited to the reading ability level of a plurality of readers for the portions of text associated with the character or characters each reader selects or is assigned to read within a role-play reading format that does not disrupt the overall presentation of text of story.